Robert C. Weaver Federal Building
Encyclopedia
The Robert C. Weaver Federal Building is a 10-story
office building in Washington, D.C.
, owned by the federal government of the United States
. Completed in 1968, it serves as the headquarters of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD). Built by the General Services Administration
, it is a prime example of Brutalist architecture
. The structure is named for Dr. Robert C. Weaver
, the first Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
and the first African American
Cabinet member
.
John F. Kennedy
established the Ad Hoc Committee on Federal Office Space and charged it with developing new guidelines for the design of federal office buildings. On May 23, 1962, the Ad Hoc Committee issued a one-page report, Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture, which established these new design principles. The document encouraged federal planners to consider and build structures that "reflect the dignity, enterprise, vigor and stability of the American National Government" and "embody the finest contemporary American architectural thought."
In 1965, major revisions to federal housing policy resulted in the creation of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The United States Congress
passed and President Lyndon B. Johnson
signed the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965
on August 10, 1965, which President Johnson called "the single most important breakthrough" in federal housing policy since the 1920s. The legislation greatly expanded funding for existing federal housing programs, and added new programs to provide rent subsidies for the elderly and disabled; housing rehabilitation grants to poor homeowners; provisions for veterans to make very low down-payments to obtain mortgages; new authority for families qualifying for public housing to be placed in empty private housing (along with subsidies to landlords); and matching grants to localities for the construction of water and sewer facilities, construction of community centers in low-income areas, and urban beautification. Just four weeks later, on September 9, President Johnson signed legislation establishing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Design work on the future HUD building began immediately. Karel Yasko, Assistant Commissioner for Design and Construction in the U.S. General Services Administration
(GSA), oversaw the design process in accordance with the Ad Hoc Committee's guidelines. In 1946, the Congress had passed the District of Columbia Redevelopment Act, which established the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency and provided for clearance of land and redevelopment funds in the capital. After a decade of discussion, public comment, and negotiations with landowners and developers, the Southwest Urban Renewal Plan was approved in November 1956. In part, the plan cleared the way for GSA to build new large federal office buildings between Independence Avenue SW and Southeast Freeway
to its south. The HUD building, the only office building south of the railroad tracks (which bifurcated the area on an east-west axis), was designed to be a showcase for the Ad Hoc Committee's design guidelines. Internationally known architect Marcel Breuer
submitted the building's winning design. Breuer became the building's lead architect, assisted by his associate Herbert Beckhard and the firm of Nolen-Swinburne.
Breuer drew on many of his previous buildings for inspiration for HUD Heqadquarters. He had built curvilinear precast concrete
buildings before for UNESCO
's world headquarters in Paris
and the IBM Research Center in La Gaude
(both in France
). The curvilinear shape allowed the maximum amount of natural light to reach the maximum number of offices. This design also reflected much of the architectural style adopted during the early 1960s in Washington, D.C., (notably at the Watergate complex
). The final design resembles that of a giant capital letter "X" with an elongated spine and four bilateral, symmetrical, curving arms. The four arms created four spaces. The northern space was given over to gigantic HVAC
vents. The western space was planted with grass and with low concrete benches lining the semicircular space.
GSA's design specifications required that extensive underground parking be incorporated into the building. Breuer designed a lightweight, six-acre (2.4 hectares) plaza to fit as a sort of roof over the underground parking garage. The plaza surface would be covered in masonry "stones", with a curving driveway (mimicking the building facade) to lead vehicular traffic into the garage entrance and exit (which were situated in the center of the plaza). An offshoot of the driveway (set off by bollard
s) came up to the front doors to allow the limousines of high-ranking visitors to pull up directly to the building's front doors. Because the weight of the plaza/roof had to be kept light, no plantings (lawns, trees, shrubs, etc.) were envisioned for the plaza. Although the plaza was devoid of plants, its shape and vast expanse were designed to relate aesthetically to the nearby National Mall
.
Deep-set windows in rectilinear shapes, a Breuer trademark, were planned for the facade. The window frames were made of precast concrete. The building was the first Breuer-designed structure in the United States to use a precast concrete facade, and this was the first federal building to be built of precast concrete. The facade was designed to be load-bearing, with the panels on the second, third, and fourth floors designed to carry the weight of the building. The window frames on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors were slightly thinner, because although they were not load-bearing they had to contain HVAC
piping. The panels on the middle floors required the least amount of fabrication, according to architect Herbert Beckhard (an associate in Breuer's firm who helped design the building), as they did not need to bear as much load nor contain much piping. The windows do not meet at the corner of the concrete frame. Pipes from the I-395
tunnel (which runs below the building) run up through the building's walls and vent at the corners of the window frames, dispersing automobile exhaust fumes high in the air. Each concrete unit is three feet (0.9 metres) thick and weighs almost 13 tons (11.8 metric tonnes). The firm which supplied the window frames had no previous experience producing architectural concrete, but instead had supplied precast forms for bridges and parking garages.
The structure's interior floors were also made precast concrete. However, the floors were almost made of more than-traditional materials. Late in the design process, GSA accountants estimated that the cost of precast concrete for the flooring would be exceptionally high, and GSA threatened to change the architectural plans. But after extensive discussions between GSA and Breuer, GSA relented. The plans were let to bid as designed, and the floors were fabricated for significantly less than estimated.
The base of the building was designed to look much different from the upper nine floors. The building's first floor is recessed, with load-bearing concrete piloti
s (piers) supporting the upper floors at intervals around the building. The V-shaped columns taper to a narrow base that creates a more open, "lighter" appearance at ground level and whose angularity contrasts with the building's curving facade. The walls of the recessed first floor are not bare concrete but rather sheathed in granite
.
No abrasive blasting
or acid etching of the visible exterior concrete was used to smooth the appearance of the structure, as Breuer and Beckhard believed concrete casting techniques had advanced sufficiently to no longer require it.
An Oscar Stonorov
bust of Catherine Bauer Wurster
, an influential public housing advocate in the 1930s, adorns the building's Main (South) lobby.
The project was expected to cost $32 million, although only $29 million was appropriated
by Congress for construction.
, one of the largest federal building contractors in the Washington metro area, was named the lead construction contractor. A strike
by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America
temporarily delayed construction in May 1966. The building's cornerstone was laid by Vice President
Hubert H. Humphrey in November of that year. Unfortunately, during the HUD building's construction, the footings for the western portion of the building were accidentally built 1.5 to 3.5 feet (0.46 to 1 metre) over the property line. The three-feet-thick (1 metre) footings were 23 feet (7 metres) underground. When L'Enfant Properties, leaseholder of the property abutting the HUD site, began construction of L'Enfant Plaza Hotel
in 1971, the company was forced to sue John McShain, Inc. and the Redevelopment Land Agency for removal of the footings, stabilization of the HUD structure, and associated costs. The action spawned several lengthy court battles which lasted through the 1970s.
The HUD headquarters building was formally dedicated on September 21, 1968. President Johnson and HUD Secretary Robert C. Weaver attended the ceremony. The final structure contained 700,000 square feet (65,100 square metres) of office space. There were 10 stories of offices above ground, and another two floors below ground. The final cost was just $26 million (about $162 million in 2010 dollars).
In 2000, the HUD building was officially renamed the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building in honor of Dr. Robert C. Weaver
, the first HUD Secretary and the first African American Cabinet member.
told HUD (which had commissioned a study of the building), were so poor that they were characterized as a "disaster".
In the late 1980s, the plaza began leaking water into the building's underground parking garage. Rather than merely fix the leak, HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros
encouraged GSA to renovate or reconstruct the plaza to make it more worker- and pedestrian-friendly. In 1990, Martha Schwartz
, a nationally recognized Massachusetts
-based landscape architect
known for her unconventional and colorful designs, was commissioned to redesign the plaza. Schwartz initially envisoned low, round, concrete planters containing grass that would double as seating, and donut-shaped canopies of brightly colored plastic (lit from within at night) set upon 18-foot steel poles to provide shelter from the sun and rain. Schwartz developed her design in 1994 after receiving public feedback during a workshop sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts
. Although the design had passed through the GSA's rigorous planning and design process and had the support of J. Carter Brown
(then-chairman of the United States Commission of Fine Arts
, which had co-approval over the design) and HUD Secretary Cisneros (a trained urban planner
), GSA Commissioner Robert A. Peck strongly disliked it. By the time Schwartz's design was ready for installation, Cisneros had left HUD and Andrew M. Cuomo was the new Secretary. Cuomo is alleged to have disliked the canopies and feared that the brightly-colored plastic would draw public ridicule, and so pressed for alterations. In a compromise, the canopies were retained but colored a neutral white. Schwartz also designed a back-lit mural composed of images of HUD-financed building projects to be installed on the granite wall under the loggia, but this was canceled due to cost concerns.
The Weaver Building is considered a prime example of Breuer's "soft" Brutalist aesthetic. Critics say it "set new civic standards for architectural design", and have called it a masterpiece of Modern architecture
. At the structure's dedication, President Lyndon B. Johnson
declared it "bold and beautiful," HUD Secretary Robert C. Weaver said it was "urban and urbane," and GSA Administrator Lawson B. Knott, Jr., praised it as "a lasting architectural asset to our capital city and our country". The New York Times said the building "is a handsome, functional structure that adds quality design and genuine 20th century style to a city badly in need of both." In 1998, The Washington Post architectural critic called the building "impressive...a brooding, strangely graceful concrete honeycomb." Architecture critic Carole Rifkind called it "compelling by virtue of the swaggering efficiency of the construction system."
Yet, the building is not admired by many. The building had very little grass or garden space where employees could eat or relax during lunch, and very little of that planted space contained seating—which caused extensive employee resentment. The garden areas had such small trash containers that they overflowed every workday afternoon. The building's interior spaces were also strongly critiqued by the late 1970s. According to the Project for Public Spaces, which studied the building on HUD's behalf:
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan
has noted that "the building itself is among the most reviled in all of Washington—and with good reason." Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp
once described the building as "10 floors of basement." One historian of urban planning called the building an "out-of-towner's 'ego trip'". An architectural critic for The Washington Times
wrote in 2007, "They are two of the ugliest buildings in town: the austere, concrete hulk of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on 7th Street Southwest and its counterpart, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Independence Avenue Southwest. ... Mr. Breuer's sculptural style, named 'brutalism' for 'breton brut' (French for 'raw concrete'), has come to represent the worst aspects of modern architecture: stark, unfriendly buildings fronted by empty plazas." The Washington City Paper
said the building "sits up on stilts that look like rhinoceros feet, aloof from everything around it." Many critics have argued that Breuer's design is unoriginal, and essentially mimics the UNESCO Headquarters and IBM Research Center which he designed several years earlier.
The Schwartz-designed plaza, too, has been criticized. "It looks as though a battalion of seven flying saucers has floated down to Earth in front of the Department of Housing and Urban Development," wrote the Washington City Paper. "[W]hat stands on HUD's plaza today is not so much the homage to shelter Schwartz originally intended as a token of capitulation." The canopies have been criticized for being too far from the round seating area/planters and not close enough to the street, thus rendering them useless as the shelter they were designed to be. The Project for Public Spaces rated the plaza the eighth-worst public plaza in the world in 2004. Others have praised the plaza's new design. The Washington Post said the canopies provide "a pleasant shock... Seven ghostly spaceships appear to be hovering comfortably above its front yard, keeping watch over an orderly gathering of white-rimmed, ground-hugging disks shouldering healthy mounds of grass."
Storey
A storey or story is any level part of a building that could be used by people...
office building in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, owned by the federal government of the United States
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
. Completed in 1968, it serves as the headquarters of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, also known as HUD, is a Cabinet department in the Executive branch of the United States federal government...
(HUD). Built by the General Services Administration
General Services Administration
The General Services Administration is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. The GSA supplies products and communications for U.S...
, it is a prime example of Brutalist architecture
Brutalist architecture
Brutalist architecture is a style of architecture which flourished from the 1950s to the mid 1970s, spawned from the modernist architectural movement.-The term "brutalism":...
. The structure is named for Dr. Robert C. Weaver
Robert C. Weaver
Robert Clifton Weaver served as the first United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1966 to 1968. He was the first African American to hold a cabinet-level position in the United States.As a young man, Weaver had been one of 45 prominent African Americans appointed by...
, the first Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
The United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development is the head of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, a member of the President's Cabinet, and thirteenth in the Presidential line of succession. The post was created with the formation of the Department of Housing...
and the first African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
Cabinet member
United States Cabinet
The Cabinet of the United States is composed of the most senior appointed officers of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States, which are generally the heads of the federal executive departments...
.
Building conception
In 1962, PresidentPresident of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
established the Ad Hoc Committee on Federal Office Space and charged it with developing new guidelines for the design of federal office buildings. On May 23, 1962, the Ad Hoc Committee issued a one-page report, Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture, which established these new design principles. The document encouraged federal planners to consider and build structures that "reflect the dignity, enterprise, vigor and stability of the American National Government" and "embody the finest contemporary American architectural thought."
In 1965, major revisions to federal housing policy resulted in the creation of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
passed and President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
signed the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965
Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965
The Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 is a major revision to federal housing policy in the United States which created the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and instituted several major expansion in federal housing programs.The United States Congress passed and...
on August 10, 1965, which President Johnson called "the single most important breakthrough" in federal housing policy since the 1920s. The legislation greatly expanded funding for existing federal housing programs, and added new programs to provide rent subsidies for the elderly and disabled; housing rehabilitation grants to poor homeowners; provisions for veterans to make very low down-payments to obtain mortgages; new authority for families qualifying for public housing to be placed in empty private housing (along with subsidies to landlords); and matching grants to localities for the construction of water and sewer facilities, construction of community centers in low-income areas, and urban beautification. Just four weeks later, on September 9, President Johnson signed legislation establishing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Design work on the future HUD building began immediately. Karel Yasko, Assistant Commissioner for Design and Construction in the U.S. General Services Administration
General Services Administration
The General Services Administration is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. The GSA supplies products and communications for U.S...
(GSA), oversaw the design process in accordance with the Ad Hoc Committee's guidelines. In 1946, the Congress had passed the District of Columbia Redevelopment Act, which established the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency and provided for clearance of land and redevelopment funds in the capital. After a decade of discussion, public comment, and negotiations with landowners and developers, the Southwest Urban Renewal Plan was approved in November 1956. In part, the plan cleared the way for GSA to build new large federal office buildings between Independence Avenue SW and Southeast Freeway
Interstate 695 (District of Columbia)
Interstate 695 is the unsigned designation for the 1.39-mile Southeast Freeway in Washington, D.C. It runs from Interstate 395 south of the United States Capitol building east past the north end of Interstate 295 to Pennsylvania Avenue at Barney Circle, just northwest of the John Philip Sousa...
to its south. The HUD building, the only office building south of the railroad tracks (which bifurcated the area on an east-west axis), was designed to be a showcase for the Ad Hoc Committee's design guidelines. Internationally known architect Marcel Breuer
Marcel Breuer
Marcel Lajos Breuer , was a Hungarian-born modernist, architect and furniture designer of Jewish descent. One of the masters of Modernism, Breuer displayed interest in modular construction and simple forms.- Life and work :Known to his friends and associates as Lajkó, Breuer studied and taught at...
submitted the building's winning design. Breuer became the building's lead architect, assisted by his associate Herbert Beckhard and the firm of Nolen-Swinburne.
Precast concrete
By producing precast concrete in a controlled environment , the precast concrete is afforded the opportunity to properly cure and be closely monitored by plant employees. Utilizing a Precast Concrete system offers many potential advantages over site casting of concrete...
buildings before for UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
's world headquarters in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and the IBM Research Center in La Gaude
La Gaude
La Gaude is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes département in southeastern France.- History :La Gaude takes its name from a tool that was used for repairing fishing nets...
(both in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
). The curvilinear shape allowed the maximum amount of natural light to reach the maximum number of offices. This design also reflected much of the architectural style adopted during the early 1960s in Washington, D.C., (notably at the Watergate complex
Watergate complex
The Watergate complex is a group of five buildings next to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. in the United States. The site contains an office building, three apartment buildings, and a hotel-office building...
). The final design resembles that of a giant capital letter "X" with an elongated spine and four bilateral, symmetrical, curving arms. The four arms created four spaces. The northern space was given over to gigantic HVAC
HVAC
HVAC refers to technology of indoor or automotive environmental comfort. HVAC system design is a major subdiscipline of mechanical engineering, based on the principles of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer...
vents. The western space was planted with grass and with low concrete benches lining the semicircular space.
GSA's design specifications required that extensive underground parking be incorporated into the building. Breuer designed a lightweight, six-acre (2.4 hectares) plaza to fit as a sort of roof over the underground parking garage. The plaza surface would be covered in masonry "stones", with a curving driveway (mimicking the building facade) to lead vehicular traffic into the garage entrance and exit (which were situated in the center of the plaza). An offshoot of the driveway (set off by bollard
Bollard
A bollard is a short vertical post. Originally it meant a post used on a ship or a quay, principally for mooring. The word now also describes a variety of structures to control or direct road traffic, such as posts arranged in a line to obstruct the passage of motor vehicles...
s) came up to the front doors to allow the limousines of high-ranking visitors to pull up directly to the building's front doors. Because the weight of the plaza/roof had to be kept light, no plantings (lawns, trees, shrubs, etc.) were envisioned for the plaza. Although the plaza was devoid of plants, its shape and vast expanse were designed to relate aesthetically to the nearby National Mall
National Mall
The National Mall is an open-area national park in downtown Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. The National Mall is a unit of the National Park Service , and is administered by the National Mall and Memorial Parks unit...
.
Deep-set windows in rectilinear shapes, a Breuer trademark, were planned for the facade. The window frames were made of precast concrete. The building was the first Breuer-designed structure in the United States to use a precast concrete facade, and this was the first federal building to be built of precast concrete. The facade was designed to be load-bearing, with the panels on the second, third, and fourth floors designed to carry the weight of the building. The window frames on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors were slightly thinner, because although they were not load-bearing they had to contain HVAC
HVAC
HVAC refers to technology of indoor or automotive environmental comfort. HVAC system design is a major subdiscipline of mechanical engineering, based on the principles of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer...
piping. The panels on the middle floors required the least amount of fabrication, according to architect Herbert Beckhard (an associate in Breuer's firm who helped design the building), as they did not need to bear as much load nor contain much piping. The windows do not meet at the corner of the concrete frame. Pipes from the I-395
Interstate 395 (District of Columbia-Virginia)
Interstate 395 in Washington, D.C., and Virginia is a 13 mile long spur route that begins at a junction with Interstate 95 in Springfield, Virginia and ends in northwest Washington, D.C. It passes underneath the National Mall near the United States Capitol and ends at a junction with U.S...
tunnel (which runs below the building) run up through the building's walls and vent at the corners of the window frames, dispersing automobile exhaust fumes high in the air. Each concrete unit is three feet (0.9 metres) thick and weighs almost 13 tons (11.8 metric tonnes). The firm which supplied the window frames had no previous experience producing architectural concrete, but instead had supplied precast forms for bridges and parking garages.
The structure's interior floors were also made precast concrete. However, the floors were almost made of more than-traditional materials. Late in the design process, GSA accountants estimated that the cost of precast concrete for the flooring would be exceptionally high, and GSA threatened to change the architectural plans. But after extensive discussions between GSA and Breuer, GSA relented. The plans were let to bid as designed, and the floors were fabricated for significantly less than estimated.
The base of the building was designed to look much different from the upper nine floors. The building's first floor is recessed, with load-bearing concrete piloti
Piloti
Pilotis, or piers, are supports such as columns, pillars, or stilts that lift a building above ground or water. They are traditionally found in stilt and pole dwellings such as fishermen's huts in Asia and Scandinavia using wood and in elevated houses such as Old Queenslanders in Australia's...
s (piers) supporting the upper floors at intervals around the building. The V-shaped columns taper to a narrow base that creates a more open, "lighter" appearance at ground level and whose angularity contrasts with the building's curving facade. The walls of the recessed first floor are not bare concrete but rather sheathed in granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
.
No abrasive blasting
Abrasive blasting
Abrasive blasting is the operation of forcibly propelling a stream of abrasive material against a surface under high pressure to smooth a rough surface, roughen a smooth surface, shape a surface, or remove surface contaminants. A pressurized fluid, typically air, or a centrifugal wheel is used to...
or acid etching of the visible exterior concrete was used to smooth the appearance of the structure, as Breuer and Beckhard believed concrete casting techniques had advanced sufficiently to no longer require it.
An Oscar Stonorov
Oscar Stonorov
Oscar Gregory Stonorov , was a modernist architect and architectural writer, historian and archivist who emigrated to the United States from Germany in 1929.His first name is often spelled "Oskar".-Early life:...
bust of Catherine Bauer Wurster
Catherine Bauer Wurster
Catherine Krause Bauer Wurster was a leading member of a small group of idealists who called themselves "housers" because of their commitment to improving housing for low-income families...
, an influential public housing advocate in the 1930s, adorns the building's Main (South) lobby.
The project was expected to cost $32 million, although only $29 million was appropriated
Appropriation (law)
In law and government, appropriation is the act of setting apart something for its application to a particular usage, to the exclusion of all other uses....
by Congress for construction.
Construction and naming
Title to the land under the future HUD building was held by the D.C. Redevelopment Land Agency, and site preparation began in November 1965. Groundbreaking and construction had already begun by the spring of 1966. John McShain, Inc.John McShain
John McShain was a highly successful American building contractor known as "The Man Who Built Washington."...
, one of the largest federal building contractors in the Washington metro area, was named the lead construction contractor. A strike
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America
United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America
The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America is one of the largest building trades union in the United States. One of the unions that formed the American Federation of Labor in 1886, it left the AFL-CIO in 2001.-Early years:...
temporarily delayed construction in May 1966. The building's cornerstone was laid by Vice President
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
Hubert H. Humphrey in November of that year. Unfortunately, during the HUD building's construction, the footings for the western portion of the building were accidentally built 1.5 to 3.5 feet (0.46 to 1 metre) over the property line. The three-feet-thick (1 metre) footings were 23 feet (7 metres) underground. When L'Enfant Properties, leaseholder of the property abutting the HUD site, began construction of L'Enfant Plaza Hotel
L'Enfant Plaza Hotel
The L'Enfant Plaza Hotel is a hotel located in downtown Washington, D.C., in the United States. It was designed by architect Vlastimil Koubek, and named after Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the first surveyor and designer of the street layout of Washington, D.C....
in 1971, the company was forced to sue John McShain, Inc. and the Redevelopment Land Agency for removal of the footings, stabilization of the HUD structure, and associated costs. The action spawned several lengthy court battles which lasted through the 1970s.
The HUD headquarters building was formally dedicated on September 21, 1968. President Johnson and HUD Secretary Robert C. Weaver attended the ceremony. The final structure contained 700,000 square feet (65,100 square metres) of office space. There were 10 stories of offices above ground, and another two floors below ground. The final cost was just $26 million (about $162 million in 2010 dollars).
In 2000, the HUD building was officially renamed the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building in honor of Dr. Robert C. Weaver
Robert C. Weaver
Robert Clifton Weaver served as the first United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1966 to 1968. He was the first African American to hold a cabinet-level position in the United States.As a young man, Weaver had been one of 45 prominent African Americans appointed by...
, the first HUD Secretary and the first African American Cabinet member.
Main plaza reconstruction
The plaza was roundly criticized by HUD employees. Not a single positive comment about the plaza was given by HUD workers in a 1979 survey, and employees strongly criticized the lack of seating in the space. The plaza as a whole, one urban planning group concluded, was bleak and unwelcoming. Signage, lighting, identification of entrances, and the regulation of pedestrian traffic in the plaza, the Project for Public SpacesProject for Public Spaces
Project for Public Spaces is a nonprofit organization based in New York dedicated to creating and sustaining public places that build communities. Planning and design rooted in the community form the cornerstone of PPS’s work. Building on the techniques of William H...
told HUD (which had commissioned a study of the building), were so poor that they were characterized as a "disaster".
In the late 1980s, the plaza began leaking water into the building's underground parking garage. Rather than merely fix the leak, HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros
Henry Cisneros
Henry Gabriel Cisneros is a politician and businessman. A Democrat, Cisneros served as the 10th Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the administration of President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997...
encouraged GSA to renovate or reconstruct the plaza to make it more worker- and pedestrian-friendly. In 1990, Martha Schwartz
Martha Schwartz
Martha Schwartz, born 1950, is an American landscape architect. Her background is in the fine arts as well as landscape architecture, and her projects range from private to urban scale. She studied at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and graduated from the University of Michigan...
, a nationally recognized Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
-based landscape architect
Landscape architect
A landscape architect is a person involved in the planning, design and sometimes direction of a landscape, garden, or distinct space. The professional practice is known as landscape architecture....
known for her unconventional and colorful designs, was commissioned to redesign the plaza. Schwartz initially envisoned low, round, concrete planters containing grass that would double as seating, and donut-shaped canopies of brightly colored plastic (lit from within at night) set upon 18-foot steel poles to provide shelter from the sun and rain. Schwartz developed her design in 1994 after receiving public feedback during a workshop sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
. Although the design had passed through the GSA's rigorous planning and design process and had the support of J. Carter Brown
J. Carter Brown
John Carter Brown III , director of the U.S. National Gallery of Art from 1969 to 1992 and a leading figure in American intellectual life. Under Brown's direction, the National Gallery became one of the leading art museums in the United States, if not the world...
(then-chairman of the United States Commission of Fine Arts
United States Commission of Fine Arts
The United States Commission of Fine Arts , established in 1910 by an act of Congress, is an advisory agency of the Federal government.The CFA is mandated to review and provide advice on "matters of design and aesthetics", involving federal projects and planning in Washington, D.C...
, which had co-approval over the design) and HUD Secretary Cisneros (a trained urban planner
Urban planning
Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....
), GSA Commissioner Robert A. Peck strongly disliked it. By the time Schwartz's design was ready for installation, Cisneros had left HUD and Andrew M. Cuomo was the new Secretary. Cuomo is alleged to have disliked the canopies and feared that the brightly-colored plastic would draw public ridicule, and so pressed for alterations. In a compromise, the canopies were retained but colored a neutral white. Schwartz also designed a back-lit mural composed of images of HUD-financed building projects to be installed on the granite wall under the loggia, but this was canceled due to cost concerns.
Critical assessment
The Robert C. Weaver Federal Building is one of two buildings in Washington, D.C., designed by Marcel Breuer (the other is the Hubert H. Humphrey Federal Building).The Weaver Building is considered a prime example of Breuer's "soft" Brutalist aesthetic. Critics say it "set new civic standards for architectural design", and have called it a masterpiece of Modern architecture
Modern architecture
Modern architecture is generally characterized by simplification of form and creation of ornament from the structure and theme of the building. It is a term applied to an overarching movement, with its exact definition and scope varying widely...
. At the structure's dedication, President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
declared it "bold and beautiful," HUD Secretary Robert C. Weaver said it was "urban and urbane," and GSA Administrator Lawson B. Knott, Jr., praised it as "a lasting architectural asset to our capital city and our country". The New York Times said the building "is a handsome, functional structure that adds quality design and genuine 20th century style to a city badly in need of both." In 1998, The Washington Post architectural critic called the building "impressive...a brooding, strangely graceful concrete honeycomb." Architecture critic Carole Rifkind called it "compelling by virtue of the swaggering efficiency of the construction system."
Yet, the building is not admired by many. The building had very little grass or garden space where employees could eat or relax during lunch, and very little of that planted space contained seating—which caused extensive employee resentment. The garden areas had such small trash containers that they overflowed every workday afternoon. The building's interior spaces were also strongly critiqued by the late 1970s. According to the Project for Public Spaces, which studied the building on HUD's behalf:
- The lack of welcome extends into the building lobbies, where there is a need for information of nearly every kind. ...there are no public maps; outdoor directional signs are too few and too small; the Metro signposts are so discreet they are hard to find;...there is no indication of where visitors should enter; the entrances are hard to find;...the main reception desk is in the south lobby, though more people enter through the north; information boards are not where people look for them; house phones are not clearly labeled; cafeteria entrances and the HUD information center are hidden. Finally, the lobbies themselves are so dimly lit—especially in contrast to the glaring front plaza—that this, too, adds to the confusion.
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan
Shaun Donovan
Shaun L.S. Donovan is the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, serving in the cabinet of President Barack Obama. Prior to this he headed the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development...
has noted that "the building itself is among the most reviled in all of Washington—and with good reason." Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp
Jack Kemp
Jack French Kemp was an American politician and a collegiate and professional football player. A Republican, he served as Housing Secretary in the administration of President George H. W. Bush from 1989 to 1993, having previously served nine terms as a congressman for Western New York's 31st...
once described the building as "10 floors of basement." One historian of urban planning called the building an "out-of-towner's 'ego trip'". An architectural critic for The Washington Times
The Washington Times
The Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the...
wrote in 2007, "They are two of the ugliest buildings in town: the austere, concrete hulk of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on 7th Street Southwest and its counterpart, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Independence Avenue Southwest. ... Mr. Breuer's sculptural style, named 'brutalism' for 'breton brut' (French for 'raw concrete'), has come to represent the worst aspects of modern architecture: stark, unfriendly buildings fronted by empty plazas." The Washington City Paper
Washington City Paper
The Washington City Paper is a U.S. alternative weekly newspaper serving the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.Founded in 1981, and published for its first year under the masthead 1981, taking the City Paper name in volume 2, by Russ Smith, it shared ownership with the Chicago Reader from 1982...
said the building "sits up on stilts that look like rhinoceros feet, aloof from everything around it." Many critics have argued that Breuer's design is unoriginal, and essentially mimics the UNESCO Headquarters and IBM Research Center which he designed several years earlier.
The Schwartz-designed plaza, too, has been criticized. "It looks as though a battalion of seven flying saucers has floated down to Earth in front of the Department of Housing and Urban Development," wrote the Washington City Paper. "